


an unpredictable game

by seraf



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: all the ways the killing game could be stopped in its tracks, and tsumugi shirogane's musings on them.





	an unpredictable game

the game ends abruptly, because rantaro says _i’m going to end this killing game._ and begins to leave the room, but kiyo grabs his shoulder with slim fingers, catches him in the doorway.

 

_then i will accompany you._

 

rantaro’s eyes had a dark look, and he tried to shake off kiyo’s arm - tsumugi would know, she had written his code to make him more paranoid, she had convinced him, before the game him, to include the idea that he couldn’t trust anyone in his letter to a future self. but the anthropologist’s hand remains steady.

 

_you are asking us to trust you, yes? then i would ask that you give me the same regard._

 

and rantaro hesitates, and rantaro’s eyebrows draw together, and tsumugi waits for him to refuse, and he _doesn’t._

 

_i suppose it might be good to have someone watching my back. thanks, kiyo._

 

rantaro reaches out for the flash, and kiyo is watching his back, and tsumugi opens the door right in front of the anthropologist. and kiyo isn’t bending over, so the most she can do is swing the shotput ball into his ribs, and by the time he’s doubled over enough for her to finally swing it down onto his head, rantaro has already seen her and called for help.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kaede never uses her shot ball.

 

the trial is swelling to a climax, and kaede, just as they’re beginning to look at her, yells out _wait!_

 

she sets her bag in front of her on the edge of her podium, and pulls out her vest, and the spotless shotput ball wrapped inside of it. and everyone goes quiet.

 

 _i admit . . . i was thinking of setting up that trap,_ she admits softly, _but i couldn’t do it. i couldn’t . . . i couldn’t bring myself to kill someone. even the mastermind. so i . . . i never ended up doing it. i’m sorry,_ she says, outwards to the class. _i’m sorry i didn’t mention it sooner. i wanted to see if we could catch the mastermind._

 

 _well that’s just fuckin’ great!_ miu exclaims, clearly frustrated. _now we got no fuckin’ leads!_

 

 _y’know,_ ryoma starts, slowly, _i’ve seen quite a few heads caved in with metal balls. i had a thought about the angle of it. i think there had to be someone in the room with him._

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because the monokubs use the wrong flashback light and they “remember” that they’re the last people on earth all too soon, and thus the motive videos are rendered obsolete. kirumi collapses to her knees, and her friends support her.

 

ryoma is not alone, because _none_ of them have anyone who cares for them left.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because they all rely on kirumi, and monokuma never put a two-victim-per limit on _this_ specific killing game. twelve people die at the dinner table, kirumi cooking each of their requests with extra care, with selfless devotion, and a few cups of cleaning liquids. kiibo looks at her, horrified, as they’re both declared the winners.

 

kirumi has her priorities, and if she was going to get out of here, she would be condemning all of them anyway. she had the responsibility to get her own hands dirty.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi watches kirumi’s video and kokichi suspects kirumi, and kokichi follows her, all the way to ryoma’s lab.

 

he makes his presence known, loud and obnoxious and undeniably a _witness,_ and kirumi is forced to lower the metal pole in her hands, and ryoma tugs his hat over his eyes.

 

it’s impossible to tell if he’s relieved or disappointed.

 

 _you’re not the only one who’s ever dealt with having nothing to live for,_ kokichi says, in a surprising moment of honesty. _you’ll find something. i did._ and then the honesty melts off his face like his frequent crocodile tears, and he’s grinning widely. _but maybe that’s a lie!_

 

kirumi explains the situation to them at breakfast. they watch all the motive videos after all.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi tells miu too much, when he’s drawing up the blueprints for her, and miu is able to hack into the nanokumas, jumping from that into who they’re sending data to, before after four or five sleepless nights, she’s discovered the existence of the code itself - even if it’s just the barest bones of it, it’s enough.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because angie reads through the necronomicon before she begins the ritual, and she has a box of matches prepared in her lab while she goes through with it. kiyo saws away at the floorboards, and angie never runs into him. rantaro awakens, and kiyo is never able to talk them into a seance before kokichi stumbles across the floor and concusses himself.

 

he’s fine, but there’s not a chance he could use that trick, now.

 

perhaps it isn’t worth it. if he survives, he can find friends for his sister then.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly. the code that was supposed to make kiyo greedy, curious, pursuing information, just falls half of a notch short, and he never kills tenko. he picks up the duct tape in his wake, and creates an unsolvable murder.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because tenko kills angie, and then kiyo kills tenko, and by the rules of the game, he remains spotless. his confession on the stand is calm, level, because what reason does he have for it _not_ to be? he knows the rules. and, as he states, calmly, at his stand - _i wanted to see whether monokuma is motivated more by obligation to abide by his own rules, or by entertainment - if he had elected to execute me anyway, we would know it was the latter._

 

they’re shaken by what he’s done, but he never breaks down, never goes over the line and tells them about his sister and her friends.

 

 _penny for your thoughts,_ kokichi says one day, head leaning out over one of the railings in kiyo’s lab, because the anthropologist is so often caught up in his own world, but he _does_ know people, and he has a point of view kokichi does not and will never posess - he has the eyes of a killer, and in this game, that perspective can be invaluable.

 

when they find a body crushed in the hydraulic press, all they have to go off of is the blood there - kiyo’s clothes or kokichi’s clothes or kiyo’s clothes are crushed with them, and all they know about these two is that one is the mastermind and the other has already proven he is willing to kill, and the fact that the voice of the exisal keeps switching between kiyo’s low rasp and kokichi’s triumphant bickering doesn’t clear things up.

 

who is in the exisal?

 

it doesn’t matter. the only thing that matters in the end is that when it opens, monokuma is surprised.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because shuichi saihara, despite all of his doubts, is the ultimate detective, and the ultimate detective can pick up enough, from his conversations with kiyo, to know that there is something deeply and undeniably _wrong_ with him. ( something that started as a wound, but festered and rotted and split all the skin around it, and the question then becomes - is it possible, anymore, to kill the infection without killing the creature it lives on? )

 

it takes hours of discussing seances and enough cups of tea that the tannins are beginning to leave a permanent imprint on shuichi’s tongue and dozens to hundreds to what feels like thousands of delicately avoided questions or outright denials, but shuichi finally, as he always does, reveals the truth.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because tsumugi steps out of the secret door in the library, and kokichi is waiting there for her, with the few people he convinced to come with him. perhaps tsumugi might have been able to do something, but not against tenko and gonta and shuichi all together.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi figures out just a few seconds too late what miu is trying to do.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because miu is the last one to log in, and rather than putting on the goggles, she returns to one of the desktop computers, and from there, opens each of her friends’ avatars and just presses the kill switch on them, one by one.

 

it’s much easier when they just look like characters in a video game.

 

she hopes they forgive her. but she’s got an entire world she’s supposed to be returning to.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi and gonta succeed. in a way. gonta is the winner of the killing game without ever knowing why, and kokichi dies with the rest of them.

 

they’re killed by the exisals, and gonta is sobbing the whole time.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi never follows them into the death road of despair, and nobody is able to close the door. they all succumb to nothing more than simple oxygen deprivation.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly. kaito’s disease kills him, without pomp or circumstance.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, but at the same time it _doesn’t,_ because the end is sudden and abrupt but . . . in the same way it never happens. kokichi claims to be the mastermind, and he keeps puzzling out details about the academy, just enough to make it seem like he’s, just this once, _not_ lying.

 

their lives blend into a peaceful monotony.

 

terrible for views.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because maki decides there’s no need to interrogate kokichi after all.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because kokichi dies from the poison before ever being able to explain his plan.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because shuichi _can’t_ solve the mystery.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly, because shuichi solves it too well.

 

shuichi finds kokichi’s clothes flushed down the toilet, and hears that the exisal has a voice-changing function, and hears the account of some of the things kokichi said and did, and he _realizes,_ before he speaks himself into a hole he can’t climb back out of.

 

they all trust him. even _monokuma_ believes his word as a detective as he confidently leads him down the wrong path. _kaito is dead,_ he tells them, with a liar’s confidence, and hopes that from wherever kokichi is listening, he’s proud of him for that.

 

 _kaito is dead,_ he tells them, his hands spreading slightly. _i can’t say for sure whether it was maki’s poison arrow or the press that killed him, though. we don’t know whether or not kokichi lied about drinking the antidote. not even monokuma knows._

 

after some back-and-forth, they vote on kokichi as the killer.

 

kaito steps out of the exisal with a triumphant grin, and all of them stare at shuichi, who can’t help but smile back. _i guessed as much,_ he tells kaito, _but i also guessed what kokichi was trying to do. i figured it would be for the best if we helped the two of you._

 

united, the class turns to look at monokuma.

 

 _so,_ challenges himiko, _what now?_

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly. kiibo’s antenna breaks off, and he destroys the academy for gifted juveniles entirely.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends abruptly.

the game ends abruptly.

the game ends abruptly.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART? ]

 

tsumugi rubs the crease of her nose, irritated. but it wouldn’t be this _fun_ if they weren’t real people, weren’t unpredictable. but everything needs to be perfect when it’s shown to the crowds of adoring fans. they all love the world of danganronpa as much as she does, and as junko enoshima the 53rd, she wants to give them a perfect game. perfect twists and turns.

 

she wants hers to be a game to remember.

 

[ SIMULATION RESTART ]

 

the game ends, but not quite abruptly - it _feels_ like the endgame, with the academy for gifted juveniles falling to rubble with blossoms of flames. around her, tsumugi can swear she can see them around her - the remnants, not of despair, but of the people who had died here, watching the dome come crashing down. watching them turn their small world upside down.

 

rantaro. kaede. ryoma. kirumi. angie. tenko. korekiyo. miu. gonta. kokichi. kaito.

 

they had all played their parts in the end.

 

tsumugi is aware of the boulder about to drop before it does.

 

and all she has the time to think is that the game was nothing if not memorable. she did that, didn’t she?

 

[ SIMULATION END ]

 

 


End file.
